Lufthansa pilots in fresh walkout

Tuesday, September 08, 2015 - 01:17

Lufthansa pilots may extend a two-day strike that started on Tuesday. As Sara Hemrajani reports, the German pilots' union wants to step up pressure on management in their long-running dispute over cost cuts, retirement benefits and pay.

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Passengers stranded once again.
Lufthansa's pilots have kicked off a two-day strike and their union isn't ruling out further action.
More than 80 long-haul flights out of Germany have already been cancelled.
And on Wednesday hundreds of short-haul journeys are likely to be affected.
The walkout is the latest in the bitter dispute between pilots and Lufthansa's management.
They're clashing over cost-cutting plans and changes to retirement benefits.
The pliots' union Cockpit says it's making concessions but Lufthansa isn't budging.
SOUNDBITE: Markus Wahl, union spokesman, saying (German):
"Of course there are many agitated passengers and I can understand people are angry. But we can't accept that jobs are being transferred abroad. Even though we put forward a compromise offer of more than 500 million euros, Lufthansa isn't interested."
The German carrier says it's standing firm at the negotiating table.
SOUNDBITE: Barbara Schaedler, Lufthansa spokeswoman, saying (German):
"We're determined. We're going to take all measures possible in this situation. We'd made various offers over the past days, the union could've taken up negotiations with us."
The strike is the thirteenth at the airline in eighteen months.
And the disruption has cost Lufthansa about $110 million so far this year.

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